Browsing: Hero History

Or – “Some Heroes Take A While To Warm Up…” Last time out, we returned to the “Five Year Gap” era Legion of Super Heroes for the first time in a while, visiting the world as it was with neither Kal-El of Krypton or the Time Trapper.  I’ve said before, and I still believe that this portion of Legion history (now, apparently relegated to one of many alternate realities) was the first dry run for rebooting Legion continuity, which was then considered to be too complex and hard to understand.  Of course, Keith Giffen and company felt that the best…

Or – “Not Nearly As Innocent As She Looks…” The post-Five-Year-Gap stories of the Volume Four Legion get, I think, short shrift in LSH history, for a lot of reasons.  It was really the first proto-reboot of the title, pushing the team forward in time, forcing us to learn, issue by issue, what had happened in the missing years.  It gave up on the colorful costumes and superhero codenames, and delved much deeper into the corruption that some would say always exists at the heart of a bright and shiny society.  This period of Legion history is one known for…

Or – “What’s REALLY In A Name?” If you were to go to the dentist, open the door, and find a nameplate that reads “Dr. Hiram Rippedflesh, DDS,” you might consider postponing that appointment, right?  And, say,  if the first officers to respond to your call for help were Sergeant Lunatic and Detective Disemboweler, again, you’d probably have second thoughts about your situation, yes?  I imagine that general feeling is roughly how the Legionnaires must have felt when confronted by a girl choosing a nom de guerre that originally hung on one of the worst threats the team had ever faced, a murderous…

Or – “I Can Has Flight Ring?” There are many subtle differences between the comic publishing industry in 1958, when the Legion debuted, and 1991-ish, when the ‘Legionnaires’ comic was published.  Aside from the obvious post-modern, technological blah dee blah, the major factor that separated the 90’s from the 50’s in comics terms was the existence of the X-Men.  The 600 pound gorilla of the comics world, our boys and girls in blue and gold caused rampant changes to nearly every comic book title extant, in the hopes of catching some of that proverbial ‘phat cash.’  Today’s H.H. subject is one of…

Or – “Magic And The Legion.  Two Great Tastes That Taste WEIRD Together…” Throughout the history of the Legion of Super-Heroes, many of their members have gotten their powers from experimentation run wild (Sun Boy, Wildfire, Quislet, and even the Ranzz twins, in a way) whereas others have gained their powers from simple genetics (Dawnstar, Cosmic Boy, Matter-Eater Lad, etc.)  But for many years in the bright and shiny future, no one gained their abilities from manipulation of the mystic powers, from the hoary hosts of the neitherworld, or from the various powers beyond the pale.  When Mysa Nal, the…

Or – “Robot ROLL CALL!” The concept of “the bright and shiny future” is the key behind the popularity of the Legion over the years, but what that future entails has changed with each decade.  What started as a bunch of squeaky-clean teens in an upturned rocket ship had to evolve with the changing times, as the kids of the Legion and the readership aged.  When the Legion was rebooted in the 1990’s, the strange future where everybody was clean-cut and had a nice stable family upbringing had finally been thrown aside, and we got to see the Legionnaires recast…

Or – “An Old Tradition With A Brand New Face.  Well, Actually… NO Face.” The Legion of Super-Heroes has, through the years, defied the archetypes of superhumans, redefining powers that we’d already seen in new ways.  During the early 60’s, when Sue Storm was a preening airhead with an astronaut’s wife’s haircut, Saturn Girl was leading the team.  In the 1970’s, the Legion pioneered a number of concepts ahead of their time, with the bodiless energy being known as Wildfire, and the strange and obscure powers of Tyroc and Chemical King presaging weird nebulous characters like Jack Hawksmoor and…  well,…

Or – “The Kind Of Heroism That Doesn’t Require Super-Powers.” During the 5o years of Legion operations, many heroes have come and gone, and a great many of them have had limited tenures with the team…  But it should be noted that one of the least tenured Legionnaires, the boy called Ferro Lad, even to this day casts one of the longest shadows.  But few Legionnaires have had the deck stacked against them the way today’s Hero History subject has.  Even his own team leader had trouble seeing him as anything but a replacement Cosmic Boy, but he did everything…

Or – “When The Girl Next Door Comes From Another Dimension…” In our Hero Histories to date, we’ve seen martyrs and martinets, rockmen and rubber boys, 12th level geniuses and 20th century rejects, but today’s Hero History subject is one of the most relatable of the various Legionnaires throughout the years.  Her story is very familiar, a girl from a good family who leaves home and ends up bonding with a kid from the wrong side of the tracks.  Her story becomes inextricably intertwined with that of her longtime beau, encompassing one of the Legion’s longest-running and most successful romances, and…

Or – “Bruce Banner Malibu Barbie, Anyone?” Astute Spoilerites may have noticed that at the very bottom of each Hero History, tucked under the seemingly endless links, there’s a coming attraction for the next episode.  It’s my old-school television roots showing…  In any case, the last Hero History promised a little bit a Tinya in your life, and I was well into gathering my research for her story, when something happened.  Something important, something that caused an immediate change in plans.  In order to explain the significance of this event, I need to tell you the story of “The Hero History That…

Or – “That’s Right…  Sandy Makes The Cut, Atmos Doesn’t.  My Rules, I Make ‘Em Up.” When making my final, official, multi-reality, complete roster of the Legion of Super Heroes, I ran afoul of a few conundrums.   Should I count one-issue plot devices like Command Kid or Dynamo Boy as LSHers?  Should I treat the post-reboot Umbra, Leviathan, Alchemist, et al as separate entities from the pre-Crisis Shadow Lass, Colossal Boy, and Element Lad? Could I give the likes of Chemical King or Monstress, with their short tenures, the same kind of gravitas that I hope to impart to Mon-El…

Or – “Finally, We Find Out What The Deal Is With “That Little Spaceship Guy!” The Legion of Super-Heroes, throughout the decades, has taken influence from a lot of sources, and often those influences have had as much in common with Star Trek and it’s ilk as it has had with the Justice League or the Avengers.  Certainly the 30th century setting of the team has allowed the Legion to have had more non-human members (Blok, Tellus, Gates, even Dawnstar and Wildfire are quite obviously NOT your average super-goober) than any other super-team, and today’s entrant is one of the most inhuman of all.  Gates may…

Or – “Some Are Born To A Legacy, Some Have Their Legacy Thrust Upon Them…” Last time ’round, we looked at a hero who was a literal younger brother of one of the founding Legionnaires.  This week, we look at a metaphorical brother of one of the earliest Legionnaires.  Lyle Norg’s death stands among the Legion’s greatest tragedies, and for many years the LSH was without an invisible member.  It took the return of one of the team’s greatest nemeses to create a situation where Lyle’s serum could once again save the day, with a little boost of courage, some…

Or – “More Than Just The Kid Brother…” One of the things that really sets the Legion of Super-Heroes apart from other books, historically speaking, was the fact that the characters were allowed to age. As the teens of the Legion grew up, they paired off, married, reproduced, and had lives. Unlike most comic characters, the Legionnaires were allowed to organically grow and change. So, it was natural that, eventually, even the founding members would leave the team. But when Legion founder Cosmic Boy retired, another ferromagnetic hero stepped into the fray to replace him, and found his path to…